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I’m speaking of Elon Musk, of course, the new Dark Overlord of twitter who last night started banning journalists who hurt his feelings. Yes, another thin-skinned billionaire is dominating the news cycle and influencing our culture in outsized and outrageous ways. We’ll all be fine, of course. But the online world is under serious stress, just like our politics.
It’s Friday so I won’t belabor my fundraising pitch today. Let’s just say there are no billionaires running this place and no advertisers either.
From what I read all of our media and activist groups, online and in real life are feeling a serious pinch. The Washington Post (which does have a billionaire overlord) announced yesterday that it’s lost 500,000 subscribers in the last year and will be laying people off. Democracy for America, the group started as one of the first online activist groups in the wake of the Dean campaign back in 2004, is closing its doors. Those are just two of many.
I think everyone is just tired. Five years of non-stop Trump, the pandemic, economic uncertainty and this crazy right wing has left us with a massive case of PTSD.
Luckily, Hullabaloo is still chugging along. We’ve managed to maintain our numbers pretty well over the years. I know some of you have been with me from the start and there are new people who discover this place through my writing at Salon or appearances on The Majority Report, Michelangelo Signorile’s show, the Bradcast and other podcasts and radio shows where I regularly provide commentary. And yes, I am an inveterate tweeter (or was) so there may be some who find me there.
This year subscriptions and donations are down a bit, which I can understand. There’s a lot of important stuff to pay for these days, what with all the subscription Substacks and the endless screeching campaign emails and texts. But you will no doubt notice that I don’t take ads here. When I changed over to this new platform I wanted to provide my readers with a respite from the intrusive commercialization that exists all over the internet these days. It’s not that I blame anyone for running them. It’s hard to make a living without it. But I hope that you find this plain, old-style blog format a soothing throwback to a time when there wasn’t so much of it bombarding you in the face every time you logged on.
Anyway, thanks for making that possible these last few years. I truly appreciate it. If you’d like to support this endeavor and help us keep the lights on ad-free it would be most appreciated.
Thank you. And Happy Hollandaise!